Women of Valor

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Emma Goldman - Love & Sexuality - Ben Reitman

Ben Reitman was a colorful figure. After tramping through
Asia and Europe and around America several times as a youth, he
returned to his hometown of Chicago, where a job as a janitor
in a laboratory led him into medical studies. He obtained a
medical degree in 1904 and later did pioneering work in the
treatment and prevention of venereal disease.

Despite his entry into the respectable world of medicine,
Reitman continued to go on periodic tramps and to use his
position to benefit hobos, prostitutes, and other outcasts. In
1907, he earned the title of "King of the Hobos" for
organizing a Chicago branch of the Hobo College, which served
as a center for education, political organizing, and social
services for tramps and other migrants.

Goldman met Reitman in March 1908. When Goldman was unable
to find a place in Chicago in which to deliver a series of
lectures, Reitman offered her the use of his "Hobo
Hall." The two were immediately attracted to each other,
and their relationship quickly blossomed into the most
passionate love affair of Goldman's life. For much of the
next decade, Reitman acted as Goldman's manager, and his
skills of arranging and publicizing meetings, renting halls and
promoting and selling anarchist literature contributed to the
success of her repeated cross-country lecture tours.

The affair with Reitman caused Goldman both intense pleasure
and intense pain. Madly in love, she was also wildly jealous of
Reitman's many affairs with other women. When the time came
to write about Reitman in her autobiography, Goldman was unable
to be completely candid about the relationship, so torn was she
about the conflicting emotions he had caused her.